Debra J. Saunders

Debra J. Saunders is a columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle. Debra Saunders has also written for The Wall Street Journal, The National Review, and Reader's Digest. Debra Saunders is the author of the book The World According to Gore. Saunders is married to Wesley J. Smith, a lawyer, author and senior fellow in bioethics at the Discovery Institute.

Last year, CNN's "Death Row Stories" ran an episode about a California woman convicted of first-degree murder and then freed when a federal judge overturned the verdict because prosecutors had withheld evidence.

San Francisco is not likely to change its ill-conceived sanctuary-city policy because City Hall must bow to progressives who don't believe in deporting undocumented immigrants with serious criminal records.

President Barack Obama commuted the sentences of 46 federal drug offenders Monday. In his first term, Obama issued one meager commutation; he was arguably the stingiest modern president when it came to the exercise of his pardon authority.

Downtown San Francisco feels like a large public toilet without enough janitors. More than once this year, I've seen men drop their pants in public places -- including at Fifth and Market -- to leave a smelly mess on the sidewalk. You can walk for blocks and never escape the stench of stale urine. At lunchtime, I see street people passed out on high-traffic sidewalks, and I am afraid to walk around them.

When SB 128, which would legalize physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients, passed the California Senate, supporters hailed the measure's success as a sign of its inevitability. And what Democrat in this heavily left-leaning Legislature wants to be on -- say it slowly -- The Wrong Side of History?

It is such a rare act that most do not know how to respond, except in stunned silence. Relatives of the nine people murdered while attending a Bible study and prayer meeting at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina, told the accused killer they forgive him.

Pope Francis is releasing an encyclical Thursday on climate change -- a draft of which was leaked to the Italian magazine l'Espresso on Monday. The New York Times reports that the encyclical is "eagerly awaited, especially by scientists and environmentalists" -- because the pope agrees with most of them. On the right, it's not all love.

"You'd have to be made of stone not to feel for these students," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said as he announced an Obama administration decision to forgive as many as 350,000 loans taken out by students of the now-defunct Corinthian Colleges.

"There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false. The reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally," President Barack Obama proclaimed in a 2009 speech to Congress.